ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to attach a monetary value to those costs and determine who ultimately pays them—developers in lower profits, landowners in reduced selling prices for the land, or home buyers in higher sales prices. No general pattern applies to the short-run incidence of costs, which depends on local housing and land markets, idiosyncratic circumstances, and the abilities of developers. The econometric analyses that attempt to explain sales price variation in terms of housing characteristics, including the extent of local regulation implicitly assume that all costs of regulation are borne by home buyers. The median house in the survey responses was built on two-thirds of an acre, which cost $20,000 per lot on average. The number of usable completed responses was fewer than 250 in New Jersey and fewer than 50 in North Carolina. The issue of the incidence of cost changes for structures and land was addressed empirically by C. T. Somerville.
